By Daithi Harvey
When Royal Diamond (Ire) (King's Best) sprang a surprise to win the G1 Irish St. Leger at The Curragh in 2012, history records that former top jump jockey Tommy Carmody was the trainer. However it was Johnny Murtagh who was a major decision-maker in the horse's training regime at Murtagh's own Curragh-based yard, and it was a victory that made his decision to begin the process of changing from jockey to trainer an easier one.
Murtagh took over the license from Carmody for the 2013 season but continued to ply his trade as a top-class jockey, and it was Royal Diamond again who gave Murtagh one of his last major thrills in the saddle when winning the G3 QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup at Ascot at towards the end of 2013. By the time Murtagh hung up his boots in the spring of 2014, his training career was up and flying, thanks in no small part to owner Andrew Tinkler, who was the majority owner by far in his yard. Fast-forward nearly five years however and Murtagh's client base has a much more balanced look to it, with owners ranging from Qatari royalty to Dublin syndicates and everything in between. This spread of owners and a full capacity yard of just under 60 horses helped Murtagh and his team finish 2018 with 35 winners, including two in Britain, a tally that leaves the trainer quite satisfied.
“We won more prize-money this year [just under €600,000] than any other year, but another thing that I was quite pleased about was that every 2-year-old we had this year ran,” Murtagh says. “We had 10 2-year-old winners, and while there may not have been any stars among them, most of them were bought as 2-year-old types and the majority have fulfilled that role.”
In five years of training, Murtagh's score of winners has shown steady progression, save for a blip in 2017 when it dropped to 23, but with the graph back on an upward curve Murtagh has plenty to be excited about.
“At the beginning of 2018, one of the main aims was to have a group winner and we got that when True Valour (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) won the G3 Ballycorus S. at Leopardstown. Winners are great and we need them on a regular basis, but we also need a flagship horse. True Valour is staying in America and it is disappointing to lose a horse like that, so we need to find a replacement to run in those stakes races.”
One horse who may potentially fill that void is Urban Beat (Ire) (Red Jazz). The lightly raced 3-year-old won three sprints on the trot on easy ground this year which saw the Fitzwilliam Racing-owned horse rated 104 and go off favourite for the valuable 'Bold Lad' Sprint at The Curragh on Irish Champions weekend. He failed to land a blow in that event, but Murtagh believes he can make the step up to stakes company in 2019.
“I'm hoping he can, we gelded him during the winter and he's only had five runs in his life, so we think he can improve further. The sprint division is quite tough for 3-year-olds, so next year could be a big year for him. He likes a cut in the ground and I don't know what happened to him on Champions weekend. All the signs beforehand suggested he was going to be hard to beat and we couldn't find anything amiss afterwards, so we just put it down to him having a bad day.”
Having had a good season with his 2-year-olds, Murtagh tackled the yearling sales in the autumn with vigour, thanks in no small part to the increasingly successful Fitzwilliam Racing, a syndicate established and run by private equity specialist Mark Flood, a man steeped in racing himself being a son of Boardsmill Stud owner William Flood.
“Fitzwilliam thankfully went in again and we got eight new juveniles to go to war with for them, which is great, as they are one of my main backers at the moment,” says the trainer. “I also bought a few yearlings myself to either keep or sell on. It's funny though as despite everyone saying 'you've had a great year,' I didn't go to the yearling sales with one other order. I'm not sure why, I put myself out there a lot, I go to the sales, I'm at the races so it's not for lack of self-promotion.
“The country is supposed to be booming again and I know it's been said before but the big outfits just seem to be getting bigger at the expense of the smaller yards,” he adds. “It's not just in horseracing, you see it in other walks of life and business. We're all just looking for that big horse that can elevate you to that next level. And if and when we do come across that horse, I have no doubt we will be able to manage him. I just hope that whoever owns him or her is rich enough to be able to turn down the inevitable big offers that generally come.”
Murtagh was well known as a fierce competitor in the saddle and his list of achievements do not require repeating. While the ambition to compete with and beat the best as a trainer is evident, he is also appreciative that there is more to life than horse racing and that he may have just found the right work life balance for this stage of his life.
He says, “I still want to win and you'd love to be champion trainer but I've conceded to the fact that we have capacity for 58 horses here and to do the job right maybe 58 is the number. We can apply that bit of individual attention at the moment, something that would be a lot harder with 200 horses. We've got very good staff, there's 12 people working here and I am very comfortable with that. I would need to triple the workforce or more if I had 200 horses and I'm not sure if I could get that number of the same standard that I currently have.”
Murtagh is in a unique position to be able to evaluate the two individual lifestyles of a jockey and a trainer and he has absolutely no regrets about switching roles when he did.
“They are two totally different disciplines, probably less stressful being a jockey, but I wouldn't swap what I am doing now for the world. It's a good life, you're in charge of your own team and you make the decisions. Also I didn't leave much behind me as a jockey, I left it intact, healthy and well. I was lucky with injuries and I thought training was the obvious next step. My family are now more involved, my wife Orla runs the office and a few of the kids ride out. It's definitely a more family-orientated life than when I was a jockey. I'm here at home a lot more, I go to a lot of football, rugby and hockey matches with the kids. When I was riding, I was on the go 24-seven and if I wasn't riding I was in the sauna or out jogging. I missed a lot of family time as a result and now I feel very much part of it. I'm really enjoying it.”
On the same theme he continues, “In some respects, the life of a jockey is a lot easier in that you don't have to look after the horses every day, deal with staff and owners as much but then there are the obvious drawbacks. You have to be totally dedicated and you can't eat a lot. When you are the top end it's a fantastic life and when it really matters, i.e. when you get legged up before a race, you have all the control as a jockey but as a trainer when it really matters, you hand it all over to a jockey and you have no control.”
Such acceptance for a more balanced life should not be mistaken for complacency, however, one gets the impression that Murtagh does miss not being as involved on the big days on a regular basis, something that was the norm when he was riding.
“While I may never be champion trainer, we had 33 winners in Ireland from 58 horses, so that seems like a good ratio of winners to horses for me,” he says. “If we can just up the quality of horse in the yard then I think we can be more active on the big stage. To be honest, I'm not really that interested in training horses rated in the 60s, we tend to be fairly ruthless and if they don't show potential to at least be an 80-type of horse then we move them on. These horses can go on to win races and that's fine, but from an economics point of view for the owner, I find it hard to justify spending 20 grand a year on training fees on a horse that might win seven or eight grand if he is lucky enough to win one race. We're not a punting yard either so we wouldn't be into setting one up for a gamble.”
One avenue that does allow Murtagh to get a Group 1 fix every now and then is his punditry role with ITV, a job that sees him work 10 days a year in front of the camera alongside Ed Chamberlin, Jason Weaver, Francesca Cumani, et al.
“I like working for ITV, especially at the moment, as we don't really have many horses for the big days,” he says. “It allows me to be involved in those high-profile meetings. I get to catch up with a lot of old friends and I don't find it a difficult job. I'm talking about what I know, about situations I've been in. There are lots of good race-readers and analysts these days, but there are also many viewers who aren't as knowledgeable and maybe watching racing for the first time. The thing Ed [Chamberlin] keeps instilling in me is we need to cut out some of the jargon so more people can identify with and understand the sport. It's such a fascinating sport and we need to grow the audience which can only help participation in the long run.”
Murtagh's involvement in ITV has also had a beneficial impact on his ownership base, with front-man Chamberlin having invested in a share of winning 2-year-old Lord Rapscallion (Ire) (Alhebayeb {Ire}) and Chamberlin's route into ownership is something Murtagh is keen to build on.
“It's good to have Ed on board, as he has a high profile and is a good ambassador for the sport. I know it's catching on, but I think the way forward for ownership is for people to own bits of horses. Look at Fitzwilliam Racing, they have eight horses in total and there are 15 or 20 people involved. The costs are spread and the likelihood of getting a good horse is obviously increased by the more horses you have. If someone doesn't have the resources to get involved with something like Fitzwilliam, we can also offer a similar situation with another horse where the minimum share you can take is 5%. We then give them a price for the year and take it from there. A one-off payment seems to suit a lot of people, you know where you stand and there are no hidden extras.”
So having built a good business from scratch and established himself among the upper tier of trainers in Ireland, Johnny Murtagh goes into 2019 optimistic and hungry to add some prestigious races to his training CV.
“We're hoping we can have a few more group winners and I'd really love to have a 2-year-old group winner,” he admits. “The yearlings we bought this year were a mix of precocious and later-maturing types, so hopefully we'll have a few for the latter part of the season as well. They're all broken and riding and just tipping away doing basic ground work. They'll have a little break over Christmas, but come the first week of January they will be out on the Curragh. January, February and March are important months. By the middle of March they should be matched up in pairs according to their precocity and ability and at that stage we should have a fair idea of what we have.”
Whatever ammunition Murtagh has at his disposal, his statistics show he tends to get the best out of his horses, and it would be a surprise if his 2019 targets are not met sooner rather than later.
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